Russia-Ukraine War: List of key events, day 1,003 | Russia-Ukraine war News

These were the key events on the 1,003rd day of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Here is the situation for Saturday, November 23:

Military

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to launch more tests of the hypersonic missile – Oreshnik – launched in Ukraine on Thursday.
• Ukraine is seeking updated air defense systems from its allies in response to the new threat of Russian hypersonic missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
• Experts believe the Oreshnik can fly 10 times faster and may be able to hit targets up to 5,500km (3,400 miles) away.
• General Sergei Karakayev, head of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be equipped with nuclear or conventional weapons.
• China’s Foreign Ministry also called for “calm” and “restraint” in the war after Russia confirmed it had fired a new ballistic missile into Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy said in his late-night speech that Russia’s escalation in the conflict made a mockery of international calls for it to be postponed. “From Russia, this is a mockery of the position of states like China, states of the Global South, certain leaders who want to hold back all the time,” he said.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has expressed alarm shared by others about the latest developments in Russia’s war with Ukraine. “The war in the east is entering a decisive phase. We all know this,” he said. “The events of the past few hours show that the threat is very serious and real when it comes to global conflicts.”
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the use of a hypersonic missile as “a terrible escalation, like the use of North Korean soldiers, who are now being sent and dying in this war of Putin’s dream.”
• NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks on Tuesday after Russia launched an attack with a test, hypersonic ballistic missile.
• In Kyiv, the parliament canceled its regular questions on Friday to the government due to fear of attacks. Many members of parliament said they were working remotely and Friday’s meeting had been cancelled.

Fighting

• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had captured the settlement of Novodmytrivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, their latest gain in what Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov described as an acceleration.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said the area was among eight villages where Russian troops were fighting and trying to advance.
• A source in the Ukrainian military said Russian troops were advancing “200-300 meters per day” near the Ukrainian base in Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region. The source described the situation as “worse” than in the city of Pokrovsk, which is also an important prize in Russia.

• The United States expects thousands of North Korean troops to gather in Russia “soon” to go to war with Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. About 10,000 North Korean troops are believed to be based in the Russian border region of Kursk, Austin said, where they are “integrated with Russian forces”.
• Authorities in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy said two people were killed and 12 others injured in a Russian drone attack. The area is an important supply route for the Ukrainian army that has taken over part of the Kursk region in western Russia.

Diplomacy

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Russia’s threat of further strikes with new weapons should be taken seriously, warning “there will be consequences”. Orban said that Russia “bases its policy and its place in the world on the military” and enjoys its position as “one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with modern and destructive weapons”.
• US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the White House said in a statement.

• US President-elect Donald Trump is considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to four sources familiar with the transition plans. Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and was the acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, will play a major role in Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine if he is ultimately nominated for the post, according to reports.
• Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, was a member of Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused of threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless it agreed to launch a corruption investigation into Trump’s Democratic rival, now president. Joe Biden.

Regional security

• The leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania met in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Friday for a meeting of the Baltic Council of Ministers where they discussed general issues of defense and security and the threat of internecine wars with unfriendly states, according to reports.
• “The recent damage to the Lithuania-Sweden and Finland-Germany cables in the Baltic Sea has once again highlighted the importance of protecting our undersea infrastructure,” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said after the meeting.
• A Norwegian student in his 20s has been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia and Iran while working as a security guard at the US embassy in Oslo, Norwegian authorities said. The suspect, who has not been identified, was ordered to be kept in custody for four weeks. He runs a security company jointly with the dual country of Norway and an unspecified Eastern European country, according to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

• The Swiss government has said it is banning exports from a Polish military supplier after concluding that some 645,000 rounds of Swiss-made ammunition ended up in Ukraine in violation of Swiss law. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said that exports to the Polish company will be banned because “the risk of diversion to Ukraine is considered very high”. Swiss law prohibits the export of Swiss or Swiss-made military hardware to conflict countries.
• A man has pleaded guilty in a UK court to the burning of a Ukraine-linked business in London, which prosecutors say was carried out on behalf of the Russian group Wagner. Jake Reeves, 23, admitted he was severely burned and accepted money from foreign intelligence as he appeared via video-link at Woolwich Crown Court in London. He is one of six people charged with the March blaze at an industrial estate in Leyton, east London, which required 60 firefighters to put out.

A humanist

• Ukraine will soon receive $4.8bn from the World Bank for humanitarian purposes, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. In total, Ukraine has already received more than $100bn in foreign aid since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• Dozens of citizens from the Russian border region of Kursk have been returned to Russia from Ukraine following “painful” talks between Moscow and Kyiv. It is not clear why the citizens were moved to Ukraine, and there was no comment from Kyiv. “Today, 46 citizens of the Kursk region returned to Russia from Ukraine as a result of the negotiation process with the Ukrainian side,” said Russian human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova.